Murder in an Irish Cottage

Siobhán was headed back to the Ballysiogdun Inn when her phone pinged with a text from James.

Her mobile dinged and a photo came back. Her entire brood was in front of the inn, large grins plastered on their faces.

It takes a village to survive this village

Tears welled in her eyes as she texted back:

Let’s go shopping then

Three moving dots appeared on her text and she grinned as she waited for his reply:

Typical

She laughed out loud, her steps lighter as she headed to meet up with them. Her joy was soon muted by the image of a dead, tailless mouse in Ellen’s sink. Sacrifice. Witch. How browned off was her fiancé going to be that she was keeping such bizarre discoveries from him? It would be hard to claim that it slipped her mind. She sighed, pondering her options, wishing she had a little person to blame it on.

* * *

The Ballysiogdun Charity Shop sold antiques and curiosity items, and after asking around Siobhán learned that the owner was touted as the man to ask about coins, or any Irish treasures for that matter. It was also a destination if not wildly, at least mildly approved by her brood. The short man tinkering with a clock grinned when they walked in. Ciarán, Ann, Gráinne, Eoin, and James all spread out, going for toys, books, clothes, graphic novels, and Siobhán wasn’t sure what James was going to find to occupy himself, but he seemed content to be in their company. She vowed they would go on a proper holiday soon, where murder would be the last thing on their minds.

Siobhán was hoping that a photo of the coin found underneath Ellen’s bed would be enough to garner some information. She approached the owner, who was polishing a crystal owl, smiling as if calculating how much they might spend.

“How ye,” he said. “If you’re looking for jewelry, I’ve got a nice assortment here.” He pointed to a large glass case next to him. She thought of her engagement ring, once again safely tucked away. She wouldn’t care if she never owned another piece of jewelry in her life.

“I need a consultation,” she said. “I have a photo of a coin. A guinea.”

“A guinea?” He plunked the owl down on the counter, rubbed his hands together, then looked around. “You heard the chatter then?”

“Chatter?”

“If it’s a big payout you’re looking for, you’ll be disappointed. If you found it buried in Ireland, it belongs to the government.” His smile was still visible but carried half the power.

“Nothing like that.” She pulled out her mobile phone and enlarged the picture of the gold coin. “It’s not a perfect picture, but I was wondering if there is any way you could identify it.”

He reluctantly took her mobile and brought it up to his eyes. “Hold on.” He dug around in a drawer, pulled out a monocle, and looked again. She saw him light up. “A 1773 George the Third. If it’s in fine condition, could be around eight hundred euro, or more. They’d have to measure the gold content.”

“Eight hundred euro?” Ciarán’s voice ricocheted through the shop as he careened over. “Let me see.” Siobhán showed him the picture. “Eight hundred euro?” Ciarán repeated. “For that?”

“Imagine if you found a whole pile of them,” Siobhán said.

“You’d be handing them over to the government,” the clerk repeated.

Chatter. “Has anyone else come into your shop inquiring about this coin?”

“Is this yours?” he asked. She noted that he didn’t answer the question.

“It belongs to a friend.”

“Did she find a hoard?” Siobhán took note that he said “she.”

“I know all about the book that’s being written,” Siobhán said. “I’m assuming Dylan Kelly has been in to see you.”

The clerk nodded. “He showed me an article mentioning rumors of a hoard in Ballysiogdun. Something about ‘where the fairies dwell.’ But he sure as I’m standing here didn’t have anything like that coin to show me. He promised he’d come back in and tell me if he found a hoard.”

He’d certainly told someone something about it. Or did he keep it all to himself?

“Hoard?” Ciarán said, scrunching his nose. “What’s that?”

“Buried treasures,” he said with a wink. “Do you want to hear the stories?”

“Of course.” The answer came not from Siobhán, who was about to say the same thing, but from Ann, who was now standing behind her. Soon, all of her brood was gathered, eager to hear the stories.

“Barry Shannon, 2014,” he said. “Found himself a fishie buried in his aunt’s field.”

“A fishie?” Ciarán said. “In a field?”

“Not just any fishie. Not the swimming kind, lad. This was a gold fish from the seventh century.”

“A gold fish?”

“Aye. About this long.” He held his fingers out three inches. “Might have been part of a belt buckle. You see yer man had been searching as a hobby, like, using one of those metal detectors. ’Twas only a foot beneath the soil—can you imagine? The lad was only twenty-two years of age.” He laughed to himself. “Lad was a fisherman, thought it was a spinner, you know, the yoke you have on the end of the line. Even offered it to his cousin. Cousin told the lad to keep it for himself, for his trouble. He’d been out there all day searching, so he had. Then he takes it to his auntie, who thought nothing of it at first. After a while curiosity starts tickling at her. Who left it? How old was it? Was it worth anything? She decided it would be good to know, if even for a laugh. She gets the name of a fella who might know a ting or two. Lucky she did. Turns out it was a medieval adornment to a belt buckle, determined to be not Irish but Anglo-Saxon. How it ended up in that field we’ll never know. Perhaps due to trade back and forth across the Irish Sea.”

“How much was it worth?” James asked.

“I don’t recall. It was sent for valuation, but similar Anglo-Saxon finds have gone for just under two hundred thousand pounds.”

“Does he mean euros?” Ciarán said, crinkling his face.

“You’re right, lad,” the man said. “The pound is still stuck in me head. And sometimes the quid.” He threw his head back and laughed, then laughed even more at the perplexed look on her brother’s young face. “There’s buried treasure out there, chalices, jewelry, earthenware, even little gold fishies.” He leaned in. “But the Irish government is going to take it from ye and stick it in a museum. Yer man there in England, back in 2009, was digging and struck an entire pot of gold coins. Seems they were buried in the third century as an offering to the gods, hoping they’d bless them with good farming conditions. In 2013 there was another fella in Wales, found fourteen coins. Worth about seven hundred fifty euros each. Nice little haul.” He was excited now, practically drooling.

“Did he have a metal detector too?” Ciarán asked.

The man scrunched his brow. “I don’t rightly know, lad. I suppose he might have.”

“I want a metal detector.” Ciarán turned to Siobhán. “What’s a metal detector?”

“It’s an electronic device used to find metal,” James said, patting him on the head.

“I’ll take one,” Ciarán said.

“Won’t do you any good now,” the man said. “Ireland ruled them against the law.”

“Why?” Siobhán asked.

“Probably so your average Joe won’t go taking archaeological objects they deem belong to them. If you want to use one you’ll need written consent from the minister for Culture, Heritage, and Gaeltracht. Otherwise you’ll be prosecuted.” He made a horrified face, then winked at Ciarán.

“Do you have his address?” Ciarán asked.

“No metal detectors for us, luv,” Siobhán said.

“How many of these does your friend have?” the man asked, rubbing his hands together. “Depending on the worth of the hoard, a farmer might get a few thousand from the government for their trouble.”

“I don’t know,” Siobhán said. Were there anymore gold coins? That was an excellent question.

“It’s possibly an exciting find, but I’d advise them to obey the law.”

“I’ll pass that along. Thank you very much.”

“I’m sure you’re going to buy something, now, aren’t you, luv?”

“Of course,” Siobhán said, then tasked Ciarán and Ann with the troublesome chore of picking out an item. “Under ten euro,” she said as they hurried off. “I’m not sitting on a hoard.”

* * *

Lunchtime found them back at the local pub, but Siobhán’s thoughts were more on the gold coin than her fish and chips. Even though the clerk from the shop made it clear it was against the law to keep buried treasures, the treasure hunter may not have been aware of the law. And even if they were aware of the law, mankind did not always follow the law. She imagined if she owned a piece of property and found buried treasure, she’d be a little incensed with the Irish government claiming it as their own. Then again, didn’t archaeological treasures belong in a museum for everyone to appreciate? Ownership was a man-made concept, and at the end of the day, none of it came with you. That didn’t stop people from trying, even killing over it. Once again, she was reminded that you never knew what could crack an investigation open. Sometimes it was as simple as the flip of a coin. And who better to know what was buried on that property than someone who had lived there all her life? It was time Siobhán paid another visit to Geraldine Madigan. The cottage was clear. She was owed a divining-stick demonstration.

* * *

Geraldine’s sticks were crossed, and seemed to be pulling down, toward the ground. The shaking increased. “That’s pure energy, that is,” Geraldine said, as sweat rolled down the side of her face. They were standing in the exact spot where the dirt rose into a little hill as if something had been buried there. Or dug up . . .

“Energy can be good,” Siobhán said. If her current theory was correct, it wasn’t an accident that Geraldine gravitated to this exact spot with her divining sticks. The question that remained was—had Ellen discovered the hoard first, or Geraldine? Siobhán was starting to think it was the former. And finding that treasure had marked her with an X.

“This cottage kills,” Geraldine was saying. “Is that your definition of good?”

“May I hold them?” Siobhán wanted to see if the sticks would react the same way.

Geraldine shook her head. “I don’t let others handle me sticks.”

“Speaking of sticks . . . I’d like to buy another one. I like the one you have with the round base?”

“That one’s not for sale.”

“Why is that?”

Geraldine squinted as if trying to read Siobhán’s mind. “It took me ages to make.”

“I see. I’d still like to have another look at it.”

Geraldine looked at her watch. “It won’t be today. That is if you’re planning on going to the council meeting.”

“Another day then,” Siobhán said. Not that she needed to have a look now; her theory had just been confirmed. And the meeting wasn’t one she was willing to miss. Not when Aiden Cunningham had proved to be so slippery.

“I’ll see you there then,” Geraldine said, as she hurried away. It was plain as day that the woman was relieved to have an excuse to leave. Siobhán stared after her. She didn’t need to see Geraldine’s walking stick, the one with a round base, to know what it was. Siobhán had picked it up and recalled it being heavier than the other sticks. That’s because it wasn’t a stick. Not your typical one anyway. It was a metal detector. And the only reason a person would dress a metal detector in colorful yarn was if they knew that it was illegal to use them. Which meant she didn’t care. There were still a million unanswered questions about this case. But Siobhán knew she had a very important piece of it. Geraldine Madigan wanted Ellen and Jane away from the property, not because she thought the cottage was cursed, but because she had been after a buried hoard.

Had Ellen found Geraldine digging on her property when she returned that evening? Had they struggled? Had Ellen yanked the detector away from Geraldine and busted the window with it? Wait. Didn’t Danny confirm the window was broken from the inside? Maybe the metal detector ended up there. Siobhán was mostly curious to see if the yoke lit up. If Geraldine and Ellen were struggling and the metal detector was blinking through the colored yarn, that would explain “the pretty lights” and “dancing” witnessed by Lilly from the window. Poor thing thought she was watching fairies dance instead of a prelude to a murder.

Had they wrestled for the coins? Who dropped one under the bed? Would Ellen have had time to take a shower and put on a sleeping dress? Where were her dirty clothes? Why take her truck and not anything else? Siobhán loathed the part of an investigation where a single answered question unleashed nothing but an avalanche of more.

* * *

The town meeting was held on the first floor of a storefront building on the main street. Aiden Cunningham started off by welcoming them all and assuring them the murder inquiry into the death of Ellen Delaney was well under way. “What about the cottage?” Geraldine Madigan called out. “When will it be bulldozed?” She was still harping on that. Did that mean she’d yet to strike gold?

“No decisions will be made until the investigation is closed.”

“My divining sticks indicated great evil all around the cottage. She saw it for herself, an outsider!”

All eyes turned to Siobhán, which was when she realized that Geraldine Madigan was pointing at her.

“I’m not sure what I saw.”

“You saw my stick quiver!”

“There was a bit of a quiver, alright.”

“Could have been her hand that was doing the quivering!” someone called out.

“I’m a teetotaler, so just why would me hand be quivering?”

“Old age.” Geraldine frowned as several in the crowd laughed.

“The lease on the cottage expires in two months,” Aiden Cunningham said. He cleared his throat. “We won’t be renewing it.”

“Will you be bulldozing it or not?” an older man called out.

Dylan Kelly stepped up to the podium. “Perhaps preserving the cottage is a better idea, finding a way to keep the fairies appeased, as well as honoring our beloved folklore. We can come up with a compromise.”

“You want the people of the hills to stay enraged, do ye?” Geraldine, face red with fury, scanned the room. “I heard all of you say it. One more death and we’ll have to bulldoze it. Are ye going back on your word now? All of ye?”

Sergeant Eegan stood from a chair in the very back. “There’s nothing to be decided right now. If I see anyone but Jane Delaney and her family stepping beyond the gate, on the bramble path, or anywhere near the cottage, they’ll be arrested straightaway.”

“That goes for my property too,” Joseph Madigan said. He was sitting up front with Mary, his children, and his mother.

Aiden Cunningham was up for reelection, and trying to appeal to both sides of the argument. Had Ellen given Aiden Cunningham that money for his political campaign, hoping for assurance in return? Did he promise them they could continue to live in the cottage?

Why on earth would they want to?

There was only one possible answer. Buried treasure.

Siobhán had been studying Aiden Cunningham, wondering about his relationship with Ellen. If they were lovers, he was foolish not to come out and volunteer the information. Had he given it the Ballysiogdun guards? No one was required to tell Siobhán anything, and it was a loathsome, powerless feeling. When the meeting was over, she meant to have a word with the councilman, and she was beginning to wonder if he was half man, half eel, for once again he slipped out. He was a curious fella indeed. Not interested in talking, Councilman? That was okay. Siobhán could think of one other place that just might shed some light on the mysterious man.